Pellet Reviews

short takes from my Letterboxd diary

Zootopia 2 (2025) ⭐️⭐️

Same tired animal jokes with a number of fun (but quick) homages to other films. Tired and underwhelming, except for Quinta Brunson's fantastic cameo as the "therapy animal."

Barbra Streisand… and Other Musical Instruments (1973) ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

This is the last disc in my Barbra Streisand TV Specials boxset, and it was the one title I knew nothing about. I don’t know what the 2020s verdict is on cultural appropriation here, but I think this is fantastic!!!

After watching the four other specials in the set, I was getting to be a bit on the outs with Barbra, and I put off watching this last disc…but it is by far the best!

All of her specials were high-concept—which I applaud and encourage—but this was simultaneously the biggest concept and the simplest. A celebration of music of every kind. A gu-zheng! A saw! A toaster! Computers and sitars and finger-bells, oh my!

And all Streisand’s specialties are highlighted in the wonderful performances. Her stunning control of pitch and volume, her deep emotion, her humor… What she does with “I Never Has Seen Snow”! Well, Diahann Carroll probably never performed it again, because who could follow that? “On a Clear Day” remains better than the entire movie it comes from. “The Sweetest Sounds” was so unexpected and beautiful—and the use of light in darkness made several gorgeous tableaux.

And I happen to agree that the lyrics to “People” are dumb. (Oh, that was a joke? But it’s true! Who are these “people who need people”? Like exhibitionists, or like every human in history? What makes them so darn lucky?)

This is one of the best musical specials I’ve ever seen. Ooh—new list—!

MTV Unplugged: Fiona Apple (1997) ⭐️⭐️

Four songs (one a cover) and an audience that doesn’t seem to know her music. But this is a pretty great rendition of “Criminal,” which I never liked because it was overplayed so much in high school.

And Everything Is Going Fine (2010) ⭐️⭐️

I enjoyed Gray’s Anatomy, and I hoped this was another monologue. Instead, it is a documentary of his career. Which is an ordering of his life told in front of audiences. I’m so seldom pleased by documentaries. This is not an exception.

Le Corbeau (1943) ⭐️⭐️⭐️1/2

Poison pen letters cause panic in a French town. Based on a true story. Basically the 1943 version of Wicked Little Letters. I’m not 100% onboard with the ending. I don’t buy it. I think it was clearly another character who was le Corbeau…but I shall not influence your viewing.

Kind Hearts and Coronets (1949) ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

The costumes are hilarious enough to carry the film. Edith’s arrow-covered archery dress, all of Sibella’s monumental hats…the designer and actresses must have had a blast!

(Oh, and the film is very good in every other respect, too! Joan Greenwood cracks me up every minute she’s on the screen.)

Miller’s Crossing (1990) ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

I’ve savored the thought of rewatching this for years, and the delayed gratification was delicious. Tonight was the night. I feel like now that the brothers are operating separately, I can see that Joel really was the director, as he was always billed. The man is a genius. I have no intrinsic interest in this story, but it doesn’t matter. It was 1990, but it looks so lush and crisp and textural that it looks newer. The Coens never let you suspend disbelief too far. They are stylists, and I am all about style. The hats. Why? I don’t think there’s an actual reason. But it’s the handle by which we move around this world. It’s the black cat from The Matrix. It keeps reminding us that this is an elaborate exercise in genre more than anything.

And the performances! What stuck with me from my first watch was how incredible Marcia Gay Harden was. And it’s so hard to pinpoint what she’s doing that makes her performance so effective. I think it’s a physicality that tells you exactly who Verna is from the second she opens the door. And Turturro! He’s so far from Barton Fink. He is also living in his character’s physicality. Albert Finney. Gabriel Byrne. Everyone is great. Even Frances’s cameo is a study in how women walked in that era.

It says so much that I love this film and feel like I’m feasting the whole way through, but I don’t give tuppence about the plot. It’s just all so perfectly styled.

Also, I don’t think I ever caught the gay love triangle that is so matter-of-factly in the center of it all. They never once underline it, and so I kept thinking that I was reading something wrong. But there’s an entire untold story about Bernie, Mink, and The Dane. Also, has there ever been a less stereotypical gay character than Eddie Dane?

The dream of the hat blowing away gives me the same wonderful but inscrutable chills of longing and loss as the dream Tommy Lee Jones relates at the end of No Country For Old Men.

Red (2018) ⭐️⭐️1/2

This was so disappointing. I love Rothko’s paintings. And everyone loves this play. But I didn’t.

1. Why can’t I watch the performance Eddie Redmayne won a Tony for? This Albert Enoch is too…theatrey. He over-enunciates. He overdoes his facial expressions. Meh.

2. The play is too…constructed? traditional? Its structure does not give out Rothko vibes, and Rothko is so much about structure.

3. I’m sure it’s just me, but the music and the dialogue sometimes seem to quote Sunday in the Park with George. Bleh. Too easy. And this is no Sunday.

4. Even though I like the bits of brute physicality, they’re separate from the endless philosophizing. Just putting in wordless action doesn’t allay the talky idea play nature of it all.

5. Why give the fictional assistant such a dramatic (and limited) backstory? If the idea is that Rothko smothers him by not humanizing him, then let us not know anything about him. But if you’re going to give him one confessional scene about his past…bloody double murder? Is this why he likes Pollack? Ugh.

Morocco (1930) ⭐️⭐️

I’ve seen Marlene Dietrich in eight other films, and I was truly impressed by her acting in Witness for the Prosecution (and yet she got her one and only Oscar nomination for Morocco). It wasn’t until I saw her sidle onto stage in that tux, calmly smoking her cigarette that I finally understood her fame. She’s mesmerizing during her act. Sadly, the rest of the movie never matches that mystique again.

The film has pacing issues that could probably have been fixed by a score, but it’s one of those awful Hollywood films that insist you root for a couple that 1. only met for ten minutes and 2. are clearly doomed to misery.

Watching Gary Cooper acting so slutty was almost as dissonant as seeing Jimmy Stewart do a striptease. The film was wonderfully pre-Code, but it devolved from sexy style to soppy sentiment so quickly. And, let me say it as clearly as possible, on any metric you want to use, Adolphe Menjou blows Gary Cooper out of the water here. But good guys finish last, I suppose.

Whenever I see Dietrich, I recall Billy Wilder saying, “Marlene was a total German hausfrau. All she wanted was to peel potatoes and scrub your kitchen floor.” 🤣 And so that is the Marlene I always see.

The Loss of a Teardrop Diamond (2008) ⭐️⭐️⭐️

It’s not perfect. But it’s not as bad as the reviews say. Bryce is fantastic. Chris Evans is out of place with his 21st-century prettyboy looks, but his acting is surprisingly good. And Ellen Burstyn (and her character) is magnetic.

Dishonored (1931) ⭐️⭐️⭐️

After watching Morocco and this film, I have started to get a good sense of Josef von Sternberg’s directing style. He knows how to use Marlene Dietrich. How to dress her and light her, what circumstances to put her in. He found a great foil for her with the amoral sexiness of the colonel matching her own. And her masquerade outfit is incredible! He has a cool Expressionist eye. But he doesn’t do well with pacing a movie. Some things happen too quickly, and others don’t happen. The all-important scene of her decoding her hard-won intel is short and contains no dialogue and no clue as to what the code or the message might be. This is immediately followed by a generic war montage, and then suddenly we’re in completely different circumstances. While he can set up and film great set pieces for his star, he can’t tell a coherent story over the course of a film. And he has such strange ideas about “love.” The ending of this one is more ridiculous than that of Morocco. Lovely moments, great scenes, stylish look…baffling stories.

Winter Brothers (2017) ⭐️⭐️⭐️

I loved watching this film…but I don’t know how it fits together. Extremely well done, but at the end, I was baffled.

The Selfish Giant (2013) ⭐️⭐️

I only see a general tone from the Oscar Wilde story here. His tale was sweet and redemptive and featured Christ as a child. This film is bleak and damning and none of the children is a Christ figure. So, is this just the garden in the winter, the children expelled, and we never get to the second half of the story? I can see that. But I wouldn’t make a movie about it.

Cover Girl (1944) ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Almost great. Is it Phil Silvers in the Army number that brings it down? But Gene Kelly’s self-duet? Grand slam.

Blood Feud (1978) ⭐️

The makeup. The hair. The beard. The zooms. The boredom. Mamma mia!

Hamilton (2020) ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

I always underestimate it until I see it again. It’s truly brilliant. The blocking alone—!

The Spanish Prisoner (1997) ⭐️⭐️⭐️1/2

I am not a Mamet fan, and Rebecca Pidgeon is super annoying…BUT, even though every little thing was foreshadowed and set up, the basic plot remained just unpredictable enough to make this a fun watch. I suppose I gave it an extra half-star just for Steve Martin in a great part. Still, I have major issues with Mamet’s dialogue and paranoia. The movie is ultimately saved by another great Carter Burwell score.

A Very Private Affair (1962) ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

A beautiful early paparazzi film about a tragic woman who bears more than a physical resemblance to Bardot. She and Mastroianni are great—beautiful, of course, in love, of course. A lovely thread of the theatre running through kept me thrilled with only small tastes of the stage.

Yet another register and key for Louis Malle, who can make any film and make it great. Beautiful restoration.

The Siege (1998) ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Tense and terrifyingly believable.

The Thief of Paris (1967) ⭐️⭐️⭐️1/2

Jean-Paul Belmondo certainly has “it”. The whole film has his “it” as well: understated sexy, smooth, posh yet criminal. More enjoyable than it perhaps deserves to be.

Beyond Witch Mountain (1982) ⭐️⭐️⭐️

I love this, but I tried to be objective with my rating. I’ve loved Witch Mountain all my life, and I have been searching for this special for many years! If only it were longer—or the pilot of a series (which it sure feels like)! Alas, we have only four: Escape to, Return from, Race to, and Beyond.

I heart Eddie Albert, and these kids are fine replacements. But the main attraction here is Winky! Go, Winky, go!

Escape to Witch Mountain (1995) ⭐️

So so so 90s! The mountain is full of uranium! We’re all from another dimension! Denim dresses and 1970s TV stars!

I’m sad that they felt they needed to remake the amazing original...and that they did it so poorly. But it’s a fun never-ending game of “where do I know that actor from?”

Shanghai Express (1932) ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

The Homay King interview on the Criterion version is excellent and (I think) essential for thinking about this film as painterly and fantastic rather than necessarily narrative or realistic.

A gorgeous visual delight that gives Marlene Dietrich all the trappings that best set off her brand.

Arrowsmith (1931) ⭐️

Oh, brother.

Blazing Saddles (1974) ⭐️⭐️⭐️

How appropriate that I finally gave in and watched this movie while I’m in the middle of a Marlene Dietrich marathon! Madeline Kahn is great as the Dietrich character, but she has a pretty small part in the film. Thankfully, Cleavon Little and Gene Wilder are actual characters—or more than any other stock figure here is, at least. And they’re in on the jokes, which made the Mel Brooks stupidity easier for me to accept. Those three save the film. But the far superior version is Paws of Fury: The Legend of Hank, Brooks’s animated cat kung-fu remake from a few years back!

Side Effects (2013) ⭐️⭐️1/2

There’s no way to know going in, but this film is not just an expose of a corrupt pharma culture. It’s advertised that way and starts off that way, but it becomes much more interesting halfway through. Also, compared to the trailers, this has much less Channing Tatum and much more Catherine Zeta-Jones. And Jude Law is the main character.

I get wanting to bluff the audience, and sometimes that works really nicely, but with this movie it just made me put off watching it for years until I was desperate for whatever entertainment was at hand. And that’s not how you want your audience to think of your film.

Blonde Venus (1932) ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Von Sternberg’s directing is growing more mature very quickly. Here, it is leagues away from Morocco already. He’s still in an alternate world of extravagance and beauty, but his use of visual symbolism and recurring line is really nice here.

And how interesting that Marlene Dietrich can sing so much better in any other language than she does in English! I’m under her spell.

The Scarlet Empress (1934) ⭐️⭐️⭐️1/2

The production design…is a choice. But von Sternberg is fully committed to it. Every frame is crowded with grotesque statuary, and he’s constantly drawing more attention to it. It’s as if the set itself is a Greek Chorus or Cloud of Witnesses. I don’t care for the style of the figures, though, which makes enjoying the film very hard. Sometimes they fill the frame while action takes place behind them. People lounge on them. The furniture is all made of these figures, mostly twisted in a sort of martyr’s agony. Quite a choice. Dietrich is great, and her costumes are as always the true stars.

The Devil Is a Woman (1935) ⭐️⭐️1/2

I could possibly believe that there is one devilish woman out there like Concha, but that there are so many imbecilic men around her strains the imagination.

Kimi (2022) ⭐️⭐️1/2

Good mashup of Rear Window and The Conversation, but it needs an extra act. Give us Angela going after Brad. The denouement is too sudden, and the happy ending is unbelievable. I don’t think it shows an understanding of agoraphobia. Also, Rita Wilson’s playing “Ms. Choudry”? Shouldn’t she be Indian?

Listen to Britain (1942) ⭐️1/2

21st-century America could never embrace the communal necessities of wartime culture like this. These days, perhaps only the communists could.

Scenes from a Marriage (1973) ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Wonderful writing, so much emotional truth in the way the characters change their minds and contradict themselves and admit that they’re just throwing out words, all in one conversation.

I was not satisfied with the final episode. I would prefer that it end after episode 5. The last one starts to feel less authentic and more “Ingmar Bergman” as it tries to draw conclusions of some kind. It jumps into a more symbolic-poetic world and is more aware of what it MEANS rather than who these people are.

But great writing and performances!

The Lavendar Hill Mob (1951) ⭐️⭐️⭐️1/2

And America only knows Alec Guinness as Obi-Wan Kenobi…

Bedazzled (1967) ⭐️⭐️1/2

A bit of that crazy sixties comedy excess, but this version is actually full of theological debate. Interesting. Still, despite some great lines (“What useless sins I have working for me. I suppose it’s the wages.”), it unravels in true sixties fashion into silly nonsense.

Wicked: One Wonderful Night (2025) ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

They did a really good job of making this unique and special. I’m impressed.

Things to Come (1936) ⭐️1/2

I see how this is a landmark in early twentieth-century visions of the future…but it’s a rotten movie. They gave H. G. Wells way too much control. To the extent that any actual characters exist, they don’t speak to each other but to the audience. The writing is horrendous! It’s simply a propaganda film for the Eloi. Still, it proves again that Vincent Korda was a genius.

Aqua (2012) ⭐️⭐️1/2

Basically a mock-up of Flow. It’s not a lot by itself. But he made it from the age of 15 to the age of 17! What?!

Priorities (2014) ⭐️⭐️1/2

Another step towards Flow. And a possible backstory for the dog. Made when he was 18! But the human looks pretty silly.

Away (2019) ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Another beautiful mythic journey from Gints Zalbolodis! I’m excited to see what he makes next.

Charley and the Angel (1973) ⭐️⭐️⭐️

How can you not like a classic Disney romp with Fred MacMurray? And about every other actor who was ever in one of these movies.

49th Parallel (1941) ⭐️⭐️⭐️

What an odd film: travel across beautiful Canada with a pack of Nazis! It’s a weird travelogue advertising Canada told through the journey of six Nazi fugitives. They cross from North to South, East to West, then West to East, hitting all the hotspots of coexisting cultures that make up the country. Not a bad film at all, but Powell and Pressburger sure had a way of creating their own genres.

The Volunteer (1944) ⭐️⭐️

“Join the Navy, where even a useless buffoon can become a real man! Enjoy snobbery, objectifying women, and some light racism, by Jove!”

Ralph Richardson doesn’t come off too well…whoever he was. These type of things make me so angry.

The Wind Will Carry Us (1999) ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Not seeing people
Not hearing people
Not being heard
Not recognizing people
Not speaking to people
What is work?
What is idleness?
Do you work or are you idle?
Idleness causes wickedness
Am I good or bad?
What happens to the Good and the Evil?
How to believe in death
How to believe in life

No Sudden Move (2021) ⭐️⭐️⭐️

Was it just my TV, or was there a funky lens that made pans look weird?

A good film even for one of these confusing quadruple cross stories with way too many characters.

L.A. Story (1991) ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

This is why I love Steve Martin. What a great script, balancing silliness and pathos and heaps of Shakespearean references. The man is a class act (even if it is just an act)!

Family Plot (1976) ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

One of my personal favorites. It’s a perfect last film for Hitch: light and fun but still with “thrill” moments. And it’s all about power dynamics and manipulation within romantic pairs. I love Barbara Harris here, and that final shot—the last frame from Master Hitchcock—is the perfect way to end his fantastic and varied career!

Magnificent Obsession (1935) ⭐️⭐️⭐️1/2

I actually prefer this version to Sirk’s famous maximalist remake. It works better as a thirties film, knocking against both Love Affair and screwball. Dunne and Taylor are good, and some of the dialogue—while steeped in some era-appropriate artifice—is brilliant.

Everything I see about Sirk’s fifties remake goes on and on about the ridiculous far-fetched plot, but Stahl allows the story to be what it is—which is not that far from other thirties fare. I strain to see what makes this story so unbelievable (in the world of Hollywood, nonetheless). It only seems silly when the screenwriters mask the essential gospel underpinnings as psuedo-new-age manifestation. Has the rest of world really forgotten what real life is like? Let alone anyone who understands the spiritual fabric of the real. For my money, this doesn’t even need the “truth is stranger than fiction” argument. So much other fiction is even stranger, then and now. What is ridiculous to me is that commenters get so pulled into the way certain films are incessantly discussed that they can’t engage with the actual film, instead just decorating the discourse.

All That Heaven Allows (1955) ⭐️⭐️1/2

There is so much good stuff in here. The bones are good, as they say, and many of the muscles. But why must it be so heavy-handed? If it were just a bit subtler…

Mind you, if Rock Hudson walked me into that gorgeous half-domesticated mill, I wouldn’t care what music was playing.

How the Grinch Stole Christmas! (1966) ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Boris Karloff’s narration is truly one of the great performances.

Jay Kelly (2025) ⭐️⭐️1/2

I suppose this might be a “crowd-pleaser.” It’s absolutely a film made for other Hollywood stars to like. Which can get you awards attention. I suspect most normies will find it a bit indulgent and overly sentimental. The flashback device shows us some of the more interesting scenes, but it’s cheesy. All around, it’s a bland gaze at an empty navel.

Merrily We Roll Along (2025) ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Even with all the acclaim and all the Tonys, I remained doubtful about this production. How happy I am that they filmed it for us! I have seen the West End version done by the same director, and this is largely the same. But. The star here is the casting. I find Jonathan Groff insufferable, which is perfect for Frank. Daniel Radcliffe deserves his Tony with an extremely touching performance in a part that can often be boiled down to one song. And Lindsay Mendez! The perfect Mary Flynn! But the relationship(s) between the three are told in every gesture, every glance, and every piece of blocking. Please sell me a DVD.

The Perfect American (2013) ⭐️⭐️⭐️1/2

This is hard to rate. The concept, design, stagecraft, etc. are superb. The music is mood-ish, but it’s not very musical. Perhaps that is by design. I love the world this created, the animator chorus, and the strange owl girl! It does a great job of showing the self-mythologizing basis of America and sketching a complex portrait of the man/myth.

Life Is Sweet (1990) ⭐️⭐️⭐️

I have a hard time enjoying Leigh’s films, but I absolutely respect them.

Jo Jo Dancer, Your Life Is Calling (1986) ⭐️⭐️

Hmmm. If it weren’t so much like All That Jazz. If it were edited better, acted better… I still don’t know. Skip this one and watch Bob Fosse’s better version from seven years prior.

Mahjong (1996) ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

It may be that all of Edward Yang’s films are actually 5-star affairs for me. After finally rewatching this one—in the (thank you!) new Criterion restoration—I have bumped it from four to five. (Ironically, the universally beloved A Brighter Summer Day fell flat on me and clearly deserves another watch.)

The thing that suddenly unlocked my unfettered love of this piece was learning that Yang had the actors for A Confucian Confusion and Mahjong study Woody Allen films. Of course! It’s Crimes and Misdemeanors! These two films are utterly Woodian, and that realization allows me to understand their generic swerves from Yang’s other stuff and to accept them in their motley, crowded ensemble, satire-and-violence glory.

Billy Liar (1963) ⭐️⭐️1/2

To slip into the language of the movie: it’s a queer little thing, innit?

I have to admire Tom Courtenay’s performance, but what a depressing movie! I had trouble accepting the comedy because it was always snapping back to tragic imprisonment. And that, my friends, is why I don’t love British humor.

The Falcon and the Snowman (1985) ⭐️⭐️⭐️

From the opening credits sequence, scored to an original setting of Psalm 121, the film looked to have great promise. It ends with another song by the same composers, this time with David Bowie. These are the best parts of the movie, if you ask me. Not that it’s a bad film, but its very “seventies political paranoia activism film.” Not much sets it apart from that mass. And all the social commentary implied by Timothy Hutton’s idealistic motives are made up. In reality, both parties were much more like the Sean Penn character. 🤷

I was thinking about going down the Scheslinger rabbit hole because of by like of Midnight Cowboy, Day of the Locust, and Billy Liar, but I guess I won’t bother if his other work is this conventional. Someday I’ll watch Darling. That’ll probably be enough.

It’s a Wonderful Life (1946) ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

I often think that people don’t remember this movie correctly. Aside from the blinking galaxies that form the opening frame, Clarence first appears more than halfway through the film and is in about twenty minutes of the movie. The entire Pottersville segment is about half an hour long. Only the second half if the movie takes place on Christmas Eve/morning. Yes, it was released for the Christmas box office (the opening credits feature Santa), but I still resist the idea that it is a “Christmas movie.”

Fun fact: it bombed at its release because a nation horrified by WWII couldn’t get behind “Capra-corn.” It quickly went into the public domain, where it was found a decade later with the advent of television and made into a free-to-air Christmas broadcast. By the fifties, people accepted it. And so Christmas branding is part of what saved the film from obscurity.

However, it is the first section of the film (a little over half the runtime) that is dear to my heart. There are few films more romantic than the story of George and Mary. His constantly-thwarted dreams are painful to watch (and relate to). But the dialogue is a perfect mix of screwball sparkle and naturalistic stutter and overlap.

Every time I see It’s a Wonderful Life, I nod and think, “yes, but most people are not George Bailey and have not saved their entire town by existing.” I know that we—and George himself—are meant to see him as an unimportant, regular guy. But he’s not. I have never accepted that my Clarence moment would be that shocking… But I do accept this film as one of the greats, regardless of the fairness of its Christmas status.

The Hollars (2016) ⭐️⭐️⭐️

Solid directing by Krasinski. Good performances. Mary Kay Place and Mary Elizabeth Winstead needed to each show up in a short scene later, for balance. But I really enjoyed this. It’s on the edge of 3.5 stars.

The Marriage Circle (1924) ⭐️⭐️1/2

If you find out that your best friend moved to your city months ago and never told you…maybe just let her go. (How were these two ever best friends?)

Wicked: For Good (2025) ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Yep, a second viewing brings this up to four stars. I was once again impressed with the way they aged the actors (and characters) down and then up while retaining complete cohesion visually and in personality.

Some random notes:

I want the Wizard’s jacket/dressing gown.

Jonathan Bailey is weird in this one. He stars at people with his eyes yanked wide open like a sociopath. They managed to make him less sexy, which is odd (and difficult).

Pretty much every character in this film eventually has the line, “Go. Now.” 🫤

Ariana Grande officially proved me wrong and won me over…but I won’t be picking up her albums anytime soon.

This has just about five less endings than The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King. So, still a lot.

I’ve seen people talking about Michelle Yeoh turning Madame Morrible’s initials upside down into WW: Wicked Witch. Did I miss it twice, or is that not in the actual movie?

Love Crazy (1941) ⭐️⭐️1/2

I’m always down for Myrna and Will, but I just have never found drag funny. Still, it’s a good time with some old friends. Just no Asta.